I have often heard these saying from people:

"To hide anything from a black man, put it in black and white"
"Nigerians don't read"

I dont believe this is entirely true.

Such claims attempts to discredit the blacks and prove that we are dull and unintelligent people.

You are reading this post now, so I ask you: "Are you dull? Are you uninteligent? Are you not reading now?"

Nigerian's don't read is a generic statement that holds no fact. What it implies is that the over 160 Million Nigerians do not read, suggesting also that we are unintelligent people. I believe this is not true.

Out of the over 160 Million Nigerian's an appreciable percentage reads. What matters is content and applicability of what is being read. Nigerians are hungry for new ideas and trends, that's why you have a lot of us visiting the internet, attending seminars or one training or the other and reading books both soft and hard copies on a daily basis.

The social media is not left out. Most Nigerians dont just visit facebook and the like to view pictures; we actually visit to read posts by people, both funny, intelligent and inspiring ones.

Check newstands, you will see a gathering of both schooled and unschooled people reading the headlines. Schools are filled with knowledge hungry students. Then what about THE HANDSOME/BEAUTIFUL YOU ..... you are a reading this - thats a proof that Nigerian's read.

This stand "That Nigerians Don't Read" is gradually gaining ascendancy in our society and gradually hurting our reading culture. As educators and lovers of good reads, let us fight this notion and project our nation as readers. Let us encourage our teenagers, youths and adults alike to take up the reading culture.

Its not about reading just anything, its about reading what matters.
You said people gathering at vendors place? What as Mikel scoring 3 goal got to do with your intelligence? However will celebrity fashion style(something Nairaland is guilty of everyday) add anything to your life.
When we say read, we means read books that teaches morals, virtues, skills, knowledge, ethics, intelligence and Motivates. Not just read to pass exams or comments on Facebook.
Population of Nigeria is estimated at 170mil, if 30% of this figure cannot read, 40% though can read, but have never try to read a book by popular authors from cover to cover - a man who DON'T read has no advantage over the man who CAN'T read. Then it is save to say Nigerians DON'T read and not CAN'T read.

SporaD8:
Its not about reading just anything, its about reading what matters.
You said people gathering at vendors place? What as Mikel scoring 3 goal got to do with your intelligence? However will celebrity fashion style(something Nairaland is guilty of everyday) add anything to your life.
When we say read, we means read books that teaches morals, virtues, skills, knowledge, ethics, intelligence and Motivates. Not just read to pass exams or comments on Facebook.
Population of Nigeria is estimated at 170mil, if 30% of this figure cannot read, 40% though can read, but have never try to read a book by popular authors from cover to cover - a man who DON'T read has no advantage over the man who CAN'T read. Then it is save to say Nigerians DON'T read and not CAN'T read.

We are in a way almost on thesame page here. Read the following excerpt from my post below and take note of the bold part:

Nigerian's don't read is a generic statement that holds no fact. What it implies is that the over 160 Million Nigerians do not read, suggesting also that we are unintelligent people. I believe this is not true.

Out of the over 160 Million Nigerian's an appreciable percentage reads. What matters is content and applicability of what is being read.

You talk about fashion. There are people who have made some career out of fashion - they started from just reading books and articles on fashion.

Most people who gather around news stands dont just gather for sports news, they read the headlines and go ahead to discuss political issues. Some of us who boast of reading books dont even know what is happening in the country, but these folks do.

What matters is the content and applicability of what is being read and we all cannot ALL read thes ame books or articles.

Whether we apply what we have read or not is another topic entirely. Whether we use what we read in our daily lives is a subject that stands on its own and needs to be addressed separately.

I hope I was able to throw more light on the subject.
Thanks for your comment, I really appreciate and welcome more of it.
God bless